Paths
by Lioness316
Summary: Roald is on the verge of making a life-changing decision. He must choose between two women, but in fact , it's a much deeper decision. (Song-fic at the end, pleas R/R, not my best work, but still, please R/R. Thanks!)


Roald turned, wrapped in linen sheets, to face a face, sunbleached hair strown around everywhere, and realized where he was. The image of the soon to be Princess Mikayle, flashed through his mind, and he groaned. She was not the woman next to him in bed, she was not the woman he had just slept with, and frankly, she was not the woman he loved. "What time is it?" the figure next to him said, voice still laced with traces of sleep. "Too late, I have to get back if I don't want anyone suspecting me of anything.", he replied.  
  
"Mmm k...." she said, and fell back asleep.   
  
Roald stood up from the bed, for a man of 20 he was tall. His handsome features matched his father's almost perfectly, and his black hair had traces of his mother's brown in them. Another feature he had taken from his father, were his piercing blue eyes. Those eyes could make any girl instantly fall in love with him, his friend Kel had once told him. He turned to look at her still in bed, and sighed. They weren't serious, but serious enough that he winced everytime anyone mentioned Mikayle, and every time he heard his father telling him what a good man he was, doing this arranged marriage for the country. But in fact, he hated it. He had confided this in Kel, and many of his other good friends, but Mikayle didn't know, his parents didn't know, and he didn't intend for them to find out. He had a duty, and by being the heir, he had to sacrifice something, but he just didn't wish it was this he had to sacrifice.  
  
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"Hello M' Lord Roald" Mikayle said softly, as he walked into their palace suite. "I've told you before Mikayle, that Yamani way isn't needed here," he said, with a touch of exsasperation. "I'm sorry, M'..i mean Roald." He looked at the girl, she was extrememly beautiful, he granted her that, and he felt sorry for her in a way, he knew she felt his pushing her away, and that she just wanted this to work out, but he knew that he couldn't explain it to her. So what she said next surprised him.   
  
"Roald, I know that you don't want to marry me."   
  
"That's all court talk, nonsense," he said, blabbering on, she let a quick little smile slip, and then put her index finger on his lips. "What you're saying is nonsense" she said, and suddenly he saw a part of her he'd never seen before. "I've been ordered to hang around you for the last 6 months, and I think if I didn't know some things about you by now, I shouldn't have even been considered to be a Queen. And even if I am from the islands, i can recognize feelings. And I can tell, that you, My Lord, are unhappy." She sat down on his bed, and patted the space next to her signaling him to sit down. He did, and then she started to talk again. "Roald, I know you're parents married for love, but I think we can MAKE it love. Roald, there have been a million couples who've been matched up, and they've worked out, and some say even last longer than those matched by choice. Roald, I'm just asking you to try, it'll make it easier, we will be helping two countries, one of those being yours. We're also doing this for the people, and i think we should start doing this for us."  
  
The last part of her little speech is what really surprised him. He didn't know she could be this persuasive, or that demanding in a way. He would have done it all along, but this had made him think some more, and now he saw the more positive points, but he needed to walk, he needed to think, and to do that, he knew the maze would help.  
  
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The Palace maze was beautiful. It was built around the old palace gardens at the start of King Jonathan the Third's reign, and some of the original benches were still there. The high bushes woven together, in a most artistic way. High trellises with flowers and vines climbing up them let the sun kiss the ground in such a way, that the little speckled patterns of the shadows seemed at times to sparkle. It was Roald's favorite place, a place where most times no one could find him, and a place where he could think. This time he picked an old bench, one of the "originals". It was one he liked to sit on and think a lot, and at times he felt just being in that spot gave him answers.   
  
As the sun set, he contemplated the things Mikayle had said, and what he thought he might've done before. He knew that before her speech, he knew he was destined to marry her, but he had been playing around with the idea of telling his father no, that it was never going to happen, and that if he didn't do it, (the king), then he (Roald) didn't have to do it either. It wasn't a plan he had told anyone, but one he knew most of his friends had thought up already. Just then a young woman stepped out of the shadows, and then proceeded to sit down beside him.   
  
"Come with me on an adventure" Kel said.   
  
"What?"  
  
"An adventure. I'm a Knight, and I havn't been on any yet, come with me, it'll be fun."  
  
"Kel, I'm the heir, I just can't go and do anything I want. I can't leave Mikayle, we're getting married soon, and I can't just leave to go on an adventure!" The anger was building up in him, and he didn't really know why. This is what he had wanted, he just wanted to be free, so why was he turning this away? he thought.  
  
"To hell with sitting with every group at dinner! To hell with being FAIR Roald! It's time to actually take CONTROL of your life. I'm not saying this because I've slept with you, and I'm not saying this because I'm madly in love with you, which romantically I'm not, but I'm your friend Roald, and I'm saying this because you've only got one Mithros damned life to live, and you can't let your father and some Yamani Princess take over it! I thought this is what you wanted Roald, and I'm sorry if i'm just being a bad friend by doing this to you, but I know it'll be fun. It's what you need Roald. You just need to get away from court from awhile, and this is the way to do it."  
  
Then suddenly the anger in her voice seemed to vanish, and she leaned in close to him, so their noses were almost touching and whispered. "One Life, One Mithros damned life". And she was off, back into the shadows.   
  
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He came back to his suite, half expecting Kel to be there, so they could talk, like they did most nights. She had been his savior while most of his friends were off on duty. He remembered her words to him, and then thought about how, when she had first come, she'd used her dresses to dinner, and how she defeat the stump, and how they had in fact, grown up together. But how, now that they were almost all grown up, they were turning out different, very, and oh so different. He knew he would never marry Kel, they were too good of friends, but he knew what she meant by saying to "abandon" Mikayle. He had to pick and make his path, or walk the one that his father had paved and made. He knew she had picked her's, she had picked this whole kinght thing, and she had picked to be the one red fish in a very blue sea. But as heir he knew he couldn't do that, and sighed, tears stinging his eyes, as his feet touched the already paved path.   
  
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Peachblossom's hooves hit the dirt hard, as she rode off into the sunset. He hadn't told her yes or no, for the fear that if he confronted her, he would say yes, he knew he wouldn't regret not talking to her later, but he did now. And suddenly, it was like he finally knew what to say to Kel  
  
"I will remember you  
Will you remember me?  
Don't let your life pass you by  
Weep not for the memories  
  
::A memory of her, at about 11 years old, first in her dress, then at the study group flashes in his mind. Showing her slowly evolving into the woman saying "One Life"::  
  
Remember the good times that we had?  
I let them slip away from us when things got bad  
How clearly I first saw you smilin' in the sun  
Wanna feel your warmth upon me, I wanna be the one  
  
::Memories of them and all their friends, and then of them together, one morning, laughing, and kissing::  
  
I'm so tired but I can't sleep  
Standin' on the edge of something much too deep  
It's funny how we feel so much but we cannot say a word  
We are screaming inside, but we can't be heard   
  
::A mental picture of him at the bench of the maze, telling her he couldn't go, and then of her telling him "to hell with sitting with every group at dinner!" "  
  
I'm so afraid to love you, but more afraid to loose  
Clinging to a past that doesn't let me choose  
Once there was a darkness, deep and endless night  
You gave me everything you had, oh you gave me light  
  
::And then finally a picture of her, the day she had gotten knighted, reaching the end of one of her many self-paved paths::  
  
And I will remember you  
Will you remember me?  
Don't let your life pass you by  
Weep not for the memories  
  
  
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Song-"I will Remember you"--Sarah Maclachlan.  
All characters except Mikayle are made by Tamora Pierce  
  
  
  
  



End file.
